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27 January 2024
Lee Miller and the Mermaid (Part 1)
Follow Lee Miller's footsteps through the liberation of Denmark, as written by her granddaughter Ami Bouhassane.
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DAVID E. SCHERMAN
LIFE Photojournalist, War Correspondent and Editor.
Born: 02 March 1916, Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Died: 05 May 1997, Stony Point, New York.
David E. Scherman was the longest-serving staff member of LIFE Magazine. Shortly after graduating from Dartmouth College in 1936, he bought a Leica camera. His shots of Manhattan impressed LIFE’s editors and he was hired as a copy boy. David worked his way up to become the only staff photographer to become an editor and continued with the magazine until it folded in 1972.
In 1941, David was on board an Egyptian liner called the Zamzam, heading for an assignment in South Africa. The ship was attacked and sunk by a German warship disguised as a merchant vessel. David took pictures from the lifeboat, and when he was taken prisoner by the Germans, hid the film in tubes of shaving cream and toothpaste which he later smuggled back to LIFE Magazine to publish. The pictures of the ship enabled the British Navy to track down the surface raider and sink it. David then worked as a war correspondent for LIFE in London, where he first met Lee Miller. During the Blitz, he moved in with Lee and Roland Penrose in their Hampstead home.
Over the course of the war, David and Lee became close friends, lovers and, at times, collaborators. With David working for LIFE Magazine and Lee for Vogue their paths continually crossed in Europe after D-Day, most notably at the siege of St Malo, the Liberation of Paris and at the link-up of Russian, British and US troops in Torgau. By the time they entered Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945, recording the horrors before them and later experiencing the luxury of hot water and soap in Hitler’s apartment in Munich, they had become one of the most highly regarded and often envied photojournalist duos of the war.
After being recalled to New York, David married Rosemary Redlich in June 1949 and had two sons John and Tony. In 1973 Scherman edited a hugely successful series of TIME LIFE books including The Best of LIFE. His final writing assignment was the introduction to the book Lee Miller’s War, edited by Antony Penrose.
After TIME Inc. closed their doors, Scherman’s second career began as a contractor. He built 28 houses for his friends on Cape Cod, Long Island, Rockland and New Jersey and his own home Stony Point, where he died in 1997, aged 81.
View David E. Scherman's workBorn 2 March, Manhattan, New York, USA.
Graduates from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA. Starts work as Copy Boy, Life Magazine, New York.
17 April, Scherman was on board an Egyptian liner called the Zamzam. Scherman as war correspondent for LIFE magazine arrives in England.
30 December, Lee accredited as War Correspondent contributing to Vogue magazine on Scherman’s advise.
Author of Literary England.
Lee and SCHERMAN photograph Nazi concentration camps and Hitler’s Apartment
11 June, marries Rosemarie Redlich.
Author of Literary America.
11 June, LIFE ceases publication
Edits The Best of LIFE, which sells over 1 million copies in six months.
Writes successful anthology Life Goes to the Movies.
Writes successful anthology Life Goes to World War II.
Collaborates with Soviet journalist Grigori Chudakov on Allies, a history of Russian :American war pictures.
Writes introduction for Lee Miller’s War by Antony Penrose.
5 May, Scherman dies aged 81 of Cancer, Stony Point, New York, US.
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